Pins and Needles
by SwirlingSilver
Summary: Faced with the bombshell of Danny's ex, Mindy is confused. It isn't like she's interested in her weird sweaty colleague and his weird lonely life but he's her friend and friends don't let friends get back together with their cheating ex-wives, right? There's nothing more to it than that. Begins after Santa Fe.
1. Chapter 1

**A short story to follow the Santa Fe episode. A peek into the weird and wonderful mind of Mindy Lahiri. None of the characters are mine.**

* * *

Pins and Needles.

Christina is not at all like Mindy pictured her. Not that she has pictured her or anything because you know, she doesn't spend that much time thinking about her weird sweaty colleague and his weird lonely life.

Except, okay, she does, because she's Mindy and she thinks about everyone's love life way more than is perhaps normal.

In her head, Christina was brunette, like Eye-Patch, like Alex, and maybe not so pale. She'd also had this permanent sneer on her face, like someone who _knows_ they're better than anyone else, and who likes to screw around behind her husband's back. Her husband. Danny.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sneaks a glance at Danny, standing by her side with his eyes fixed on his ex. He visibly swallows, his Adam's Apple lifting and falling.

Christina says hi to him, somehow managing to sound possessive when she says his name and, come on, how ridiculous is that? Like she has the right to say his name in that sexy bedroom voice.

Beyonce Pad-Thai, who has somehow graduated from warrior to full on alter-ego, clears her throat and raises her eyebrows. Okay, maybe she is sounding a little weird but Danny is her friend, dammit, whether he asked to be or not and this woman screwed him up bad.

"What are you doing here?" Danny manages to ask in his usual, no-nonsense voice and if his voice sounds a little strained Mindy can totally understand that because his bitch of an ex-wife is standing right there. She is inexplicably proud of him. Proud because he isn't falling apart, at least not so that anyone can see, which she totally would be (and has done) when faced with an ex. Inexplicably because it's not like Danny is hers to be proud of.

Christina looks uncomfortable with so many eyes staring at her and shifts from foot to foot. The blonde's eyes meet Mindy's and she's shocked, and a little embarrassed to realise that her mouth is hanging open. She shuts it immediately. It feels weird. What do people normally do with their mouths when they're standing still? Maybe she should smile? She gives it a go and Christina looks even more freaked out. Mindy averts her eyes and pretends to study something on the desk in front of her.

Her right hand rests in her eye line and brings to mind panicked hand grabbing and holding and she swears she can still feel the imprint of his fingers on her hand. She brushes it off as an over active imagination while Beyonce Pad-Thai sighs and covers her eyes with one hand, shaking her head. _Shut up._

Wen she looks up again, catching Betsy's confused look as she does so, it is to see that no one has noticed her more-awkward-than-usual moment because they are still looking between Danny and Christina as if the only thing missing is cotton candy and upbeat music and they'd be watching an acrobat swinging on a trapeze. God what did she miss? She needs to stop zoning out like this.

Danny looks calmer now, or at least he would from a distance. But Mindy is right next to him, close enough to see the sweat glistening on his upper lip. His voice even manages not to shake as he suggests that maybe they should go into his office to talk in private. Mindy catches a breath of his scent - cologne underlaid with sweat and _male_ - before he is gone and all she can see is his back as he walks away from her, towards his ex.

Danny and Christina disappear into his office and the door closes behind them with a click that would go unheard if the rest of the room wasn't so deadly quiet.

A few seconds and no one seems to know what to do. Morgan has gone all pale and is muttering something like _oh shit_ under his breath but Mindy can't focus on that right now. She needs some Gwen time and some time to reflect. Or shop. One or the other. Because surely there some merit in retail therapy, right?

Something has just happened to her. She isn't sure what yet but something feels different.

Blindly she grabs some files from the desk and nods importantly while making busy noises. Turning on her quite frankly fabulous heels, she leaves her colleagues to their excited whispers.

A snippet of a conversation comes back to her but is immediately shaken off.

Josh didn't know what he was talking about. Danny is her friend. That's it. And if her right hand is tingling a little on the way to her office, it's probably because she's been leaning on it or something.


	2. Chapter 2

**So I decided to continue this story because Mindy's viewpoint is too much fun to leave alone! I'm not sure how long this story will be yet or how often I can manage updates but I have an idea where I want this to go. Any Americans out there who notice any 'Britishisms' please let me know and I will change it. Enjoy!**

* * *

Twenty-eight seconds after closing the door to her office, Mindy had her best friend on the phone.

"Hello?" Gwen answered on the third ring. Behind her voice was the murmur of children's TV, some upbeat jingle advertising something that would be hard to clean, probably.

"So we came back to work this morning after the conference and everything was cool and then this woman came out of his office, all tall and blonde and was being sexy and familiar with him. And I just don't understand how she has the guts to stand there after what she did to him. And he didn't immediately tell her to get out which was weird right? I think that's weird. Do you think that's weird?"

"Mindy? It's polite, some would say normal, to begin conversations with hello." There was a metallic clattering which made it sound like Gwen was in the kitchen. If Mindy closed her eyes she could see her friend leaning against the counter in her modern kitchen, totally frazzled. Maybe something baking in the oven. It was kind of funny to think about. Especially knowing that Gwen couldn't bake a cake to save her life. It also made her yearn for the kind of home life her friend enjoyed but which she was excluded from due to her single status.

Mindy pulled herself from her distraction, rolled her eyes, using her free hand to rub her brow. "Weren't you listening? I'm in crisis."

"You are not in crisis. Why are you in crisis? In five words or less, please."

Five words or less? Mindy thought for a moment. Could she try and use Santa Fe as one word rather than two? She didn't want to use up almost half her words with a place name. Better avoid it all together. "Erm... Conference, Danny, ex, here, gorgeous."

A short pause. "I'm gonna need some more."

Mindy sighed. "See, five words was not enough."

"Just tell me what you're talking about, why you're in crisis this time and if I'm gonna have to bail you out."

"Ha ha. No bail needed. So, we had this conference this weekend-"

"The one in Santa Fe? How did it go?"

"_Mom!_" Riley shouted from the background.

Gwen replied and Riley said something unintelligible.

"No, you're eating lunch in a little while. I'm talking to Mindy right now. Sorry," she said, directing the last word to Mindy.

"What does she want?"

"A cookie... Are you lying on the floor?"

"...No."

"You're lying on the floor."

"I'm not!" Mindy protested, while wondering which patient stuck gum on the underside of her desk. She would put money on it being Mrs. Swanson. She was always chewing gum.

"Whatever," Gwen said, clearly not accepting the denial for a second. "Now tell me about this conference."

Mindy, filled Gwen in, as succinctly as Mindy was able to, which was to say not succinctly at all, on the events of the weekend. Jeremy's disastrous presentation, Morgan and Jeremy's dehydration and then, because she'd run out of things to talk about to avoid the subject, Josh. She braced herself for the outburst she knew was coming. Sure enough...

"JOSH? You went to visit your ex-boyfriend?" Gwen exclaimed.

"It wasn't like that. It's not like a... booty call or something. I wanted closure."

"No such thing."

"God, you sound like Danny."

"Danny's a smart guy."

"Danny's an idiot," Mindy said, her mind travelling again to the room across the office where Danny was surely in the arms of his ex-wife. Maybe kissing her traitorous neck. Her grip tightened around the receiver. "But I'm getting to that. So, Danny said that if I had to go do this 'incredibly moronic self-destructive thing' he was gonna drive me because I'd had something to drink. Really I think he just likes to see me make an idiot of myself."

"He cares about you. He doesn't want to see you do anything stupid. He used the words moronic and self-destructive?"

"About eight times on the way to the address I'd been given."

"Like I said, smart guy."

"A little bit less judgement, please." Mindy fixed her eyes on the lint dancing in the air in the sunlight streaming through the open window. The blinds swayed slightly in the breeze. Betsy must have opened her window earlier, she was sure she'd closed it the last time she'd been in here. In the corner her plant was showing shiny, healthy looking leaves, so green they looked as if they'd been painted and Mindy wondered who'd remembered to water it. Betsy again probably. God, they really didn't pay her enough for all the little things she did. "Josh is a drug addict. Cocaine, apparently. Apparently he's also addicted to cheating because it wasn't just me and Heather."

Gwen let of a stream of volatile expletives which made Mindy sure Riley was safely ensconced in a room far from her mother or Gwen would never use such language.

"I completely agree and normally I'd happily enter into half an hour of Josh-hating, but not really the point of the story. Oh, but this is strange: when I was there he said something about me and Danny."

"You and Danny?"

"Yeah, that he'd always thought there was something between us."

If Mindy was expecting a surprised or incredulous response, she was disappointed.

"Oh... Huh."

"Huh? What does huh mean? It's not even a word."

"I'd never thought about it before but maybe..."

"Maybe what? Maybe nothing. Did you miss the part where Josh is a _cocaine addict_?"

"Oh yeah that bit is totally messed up but you and Danny... Perhaps there is a little something there. He's always seemed so concerned about you and you do talk about him a lot."

"So? I talk about Kim Kardashian a lot."

"As far as I know, you've never called Kim Kardashian handsome and said she smells like a 'man, all sweaty and strong.'"

"When did I say that? About his smell?"

"Maggie's birthday. You were drunk."

"Huh..." Mindy had to admit most of that night was a blur. It had been fairly soon after the break up with Tom and she'd got started early with the red wine.

"See? Huh is a word."

Mindy shook herself. "The misconceptions you and Josh both share about my relationship with Danny is not the point."

"This seems to be a long story with very little point."

"There is a point. The point is, Danny's an idiot."

Gwen sighed heavily. "Okay, listening."

Mindy continued the story, missing out the turbulence and the clasping of his hand with hers, and subsequently of hers in his own large hand, mainly because she didn't feel prepared to handle whatever Gwen would read into that. It was only a response to a moment of fear. It wasn't like she enjoyed his clammy palm pressed to her fingertips. She quickly filled Gwen in on coming back to the office that morning and the blonde surprise waiting for Danny.

"She just waltzed out of his office like she had every right to be there. Didn't she give up the right to be in his life when she jumped into bed with another man and broke Danny's heart?"

"Slow down, what did she say?"

"She just said hi but it was the _way_ she said it, like he belonged to her and she was imagining saying it in bed."

"I think you're reading too much into this."

"No, I swear her eyes were undressing him, begging him to take her back."

"No, it definitely sounds like you're reading too much into this."

"But what if he does? He really loved her, Gwen. She could get him to forgive her and it would be a huge mistake because she'd just hurt him again."

"I know you care about Danny. He's your friend and even if you won't admit it, I kind of agree with Josh that there might be something else."

"The words 'I agree with Josh' should be forbidden from the English language. They should be a criminal offence."

"Okay, sorry. We won't talk about that. But there's nothing you can do. Surely the person who is really in crisis here is Danny."

"I," Mindy began before realising she wasn't sure where that sentence was going to go. "Danny's my friend. Like you said, he came with me to Josh because he didn't want me to make an idiot of myself, is it so weird that I want to stop him making this insanely huge mistake with this woman who hurt him so badly before?"

There was a smile in Gwen's voice. "Are you sure that's all?"

Mindy groaned low in her throat. "I'm gonna have to go. Put Riley on the phone."

Gwen called Riley to the kitchen. "Look, don't worry about anything, Mindy. Danny's a big boy. He can make his own decisions and he whatever he does, it will work out."

"Maybe," Mindy agreed while her mind protested that no, things don't always work out and it was up to her to make sure Danny didn't do anything stupid like give Christina a second chance.

Gwen evidently heard something in Mindy's voice. "Mindy," she said warningly, "it's Danny's choice. Listen, are we still on for shopping with Alex and Maggie this weekend?"

"Of course."

"Great, here's Riley."

The sound of fumbling came across the line as the phone was passed over and Riley pressed the phone to her ear.

"Hewwo?"

"Oh god, haven't you grown out of that? Why haven't your parents put you up for adoption yet?"

Riley ignored this. "Who's Danny? Is that your boyfriend who made my bunk bed?"

"Et tu, Riley?"

"Huh?"

When Mindy finally emerged from her office ten minutes later, her eyes immediately went to Danny's office door, firmly closed. In itself this was not unusual. Danny preferred his privacy, normally closing his door when he was working. However, the blinds either side of the door were also closed, affording him a level of privacy Mindy had never seen him claim before. She took her eyes away and made her way to the reception desk.

Morgan was sitting on the chair next to Betsy's, his fingers tapping a nervous beat on the desk. He and Betsy were sitting close together, and as Mindy approached the desk, Betsy whispered something to him, laying her hand on top of his to stop his movement. He looked at her, took a deep breath and nodded once. Betsy looked up at the sound of Mindy's heel on the floor.

"Hi Dr. Lahiri, Mrs. Delgado is here a little early. I was about to call you."

"Thanks. Where is everybody?" _Where's Danny?_

"Dr. Reed is with a patient and Dr. Castellano is..." Betsy shot a look towards the closed door and lowered her voice, despite the fact that there's no way he could hear her. "Still with his wife."

"_Ex-wife_, Betsy," Mindy reminded her. Morgan's leg jiggled under the desk. "What is with you, Morgan?"

"Me? Nothing, Dr. L. I'll go and get Mrs. Delgado into an exam room." He shot off without another word and Mindy watched him go with interest.

"Well that was weird."

Betsy busied herself with something on her computer screen. Mindy's brow furrowed and she opened her mouth at the same moment Danny's office door swung open. Mindy's head snapped that way, all concern about Betsy and Morgan forgotten.

Christina walked out, hitching her purse higher onto her shoulder before striding off towards the exit. She met nobody's eye on the way out, and despite how much Mindy tried to read the expression on her face, she couldn't make sense of it.

Danny appeared in the doorway to his office and this time Mindy could read his face with no problems. Anger. The friendly ease she had become used to on his face was gone and the sight twisted something in her gut. She felt the loss of that look like plunging into a cold bath.

"Where's Jeremy?"

"He's with a patient, Dr. Castellano," Betsy said while Mindy stared at his face.

"Go and get him. I want everyone in my office now. That means everyone. Beverly, you too. Someone get Morgan."

"I have a patient waiting," Mindy managed to get out.

"She can wait a few minutes. Get in here."

He turned and stormed back into his office. Mindy was frozen to the spot, fear coursing through her for reasons she was not sure of. Betsy was staring open mouthed at the open door as Danny moved back towards his desk. He sat down in his chair and looked back out to the reception area.

"Now," he barked. Betsy jumped up from her chair. She and Beverly left in search of Morgan and Jeremy. Mindy slowly made her way across the floor like she was walking through quicksand, not wanting to be the first in his office facing that anger. She stopped to straighten an already perfectly straight picture on the wall and to re-centre a plant on the far side of the desk. Glancing towards Danny's office, she instantly met his narrowed eyes and he jerked his head to motion her into his office. Feeling like a naughty child, she complied.

She moved into his office and sat down on a chair opposite his desk, avoiding looking at him, not liking the anger emanating out of him. Instead, she stared at his desk, eyeing up the tidy space. One thing about Danny, he was meticulously clean. Behind her, Jeremy entered, closely followed by Betsy. Morgan and Beverly were last to enter.

Next to her, Jeremy, gestured at the remaining chair for Betsy to sit. She smiled up at him, a small, weak smile, clearly frightened by Danny's demeanour and the heavy silence. Beverly, immune as always to awkwardness was looking between the doctors with disinterest. Morgan loitered by the door.

"What's this about, Danny?" Jeremy asked. "Where is the delightful Mrs. Castellano?"

"Don't call her that," Danny bit out. "What I would like to know is, who considers it their right to poke around my private life?" He looked at each person in turn, eyes boring into theirs.

"What are you talking about, Danny?" Mindy asked.

"Why do you have a knife on your desk?" Beverly asked. "Is it in case any of your patients gets violent? That happened to me once. I was in a cafe in Brooklyn with one of my many lovers. This was about twenty years ago-"

"I don't care," Danny said, snatching the silver object out of her hand and returning it to the spot on his desk.

"That's a letter opener," Betsy told Beverly who shrugged and went back to examining the items on the desk's surface with interest.

"The Wells are waiting in my office, Danny. Could you please tell us what this is about so I can get back to those pay me for my time," Jeremy said.

"Like a prostitute?"

"_Not_ like a prostitute, Beverly."

Danny covered his eyes with his hands. "You're giving me a headache. All I want to know is who thought they had the right, who had the _balls_ to go through my drawers and mail a private letter to my ex-wife?"

Betsy let out an involuntary gasp and all eyes flew to her. "Was it you, Betsy?" Danny asked in a dangerous voice.

Betsy, flushing bright red, opened her mouth but nothing came out. Danny leaned forward over the desk, focussing in on her and she blinked furiously. Jeremy rested his hand on her shoulder without seeming to realise he was doing it. Mindy raised her eyebrows.

"Did you mail that letter, Betsy?" Danny asked again.

"I did," Morgan suddenly burst out from where he still stood by the door. Mindy twisted in her chair to look at Morgan. Jeremy removed his hand from Betsy's shoulder to stare at the nurse and Danny stood up to better see the man by the door. Even Beverly put down the glass paperweight she had been examining to watch what would happen. The only person who didn't immediately turn to face Morgan was Betsy who remained almost perfectly still in her chair, still as red as if she'd been sunburnt. The only movement from her was the twisting of her hands in her lap.

Morgan, who always brought to mind a puppy dog, curious, eager to please and friendly, now looked like one about to be thrown into the rain.

Mindy looked between Morgan and Danny, noticing the darkening look on Danny's face and the tensing in his jaw which told of clenching teeth.

"Right. Everyone else please leave. I want to talk to Morgan."

Morgan moved to the side of the door allowing room for everyone else to leave. He refused to meet Danny's eyes instead staring at a spot about half way up the opposite wall. Mindy tried to catch his eye on the way, to do what she wasn't sure. What he did was wrong and Mindy understood why Danny was pissed but knowing Morgan, Mindy was sure he had good intentions. She paused at the door, opened her mouth to say something but Danny's firm hand on her arm steered her out the door.

"I'm a partner here, Mindy. This is a disciplinary issue and I will handle it." He closed the door behind her with a snap.

Mindy stood, confused and at a loss for what to do next. Betsy and Beverly had already moved back to their desk, Betsy still retaining her blush and Jeremy had disappeared back to the Wells. Mindy had known something must have happened to bring Christina back into Danny's life but she hadn't known what. Now it turned out Morgan was somehow responsible.

Mrs Delgado appeared at the door of exam room two and Mindy remembered what she was supposed to be doing. She walked away from Danny's office, hoping her colleague wouldn't be too hard on Morgan.

Halfway across the reception area she realised she _still_ didn't know how Danny felt about Christina's return.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thanks so much for the feedback for this story. I'm really enjoying writing it. This chapter is a little shorter than the last one but I kind of needed to explain what happened to Morgan and bring Casey into the mixture. Anyway, I now have a plan for this story- it should be about 11 chapters. **

**Again, I'm British so while I tried to use American words and phrases, if anyone spots something I've missed, please let me know. Enjoy!**

* * *

Pins and Needles.

"What do you mean, no?" Danny's voice shot across the desk, his eyes hard as they focussed on Mindy. Morgan had been sent out, white and shaking after half an hour with an irate Danny, and Mindy and Jeremy had entered to decide his fate with their fellow partner.

Danny sat in his usual chair, anger still present in every line of his face. His jaw was clenched and Mindy could see the tension in his whole body. Somehow, confusingly, it made her more aware of his strength, his masculine energy that always hung around his form but was now being broadcasted with everything about his demeanour. Mindy and Jeremy sat opposite in the chairs intended for patients, Mindy trying not to feel like a child in the principal's office.

Mindy was sitting up straight in her chair trying to be professional and not blurt out questions about Christina, or what was in that letter, or what cologne Danny was using and had he been working out? Her eyes kept fixing on his arms, on the biceps which were shown off by his arms folded across his chest.

Jeremy, as always, seemed incredibly relaxed and did not seem to even register the tension floating in the room.

"Okay, not 'no', just... You can't make this decision alone, Danny. Remember when you and Jeremy cut me out of all the decisions and we ended up losing half our patients to the Deslauriers?" She looked to Jeremy, who was reclining back on his chair as if he were on a sun-lounger, for support.

Danny huffed in annoyance. "You're not on the beach, sit up."

Jeremy ignored him, simply relaxing further into his seat, but fixed his eyes on the other man. "We _did_ agree on a democracy." He spread his hands out in front of him. "Danny, make your case."

"What case? What else could I possibly say? Morgan _broke_ into my office-"

Mindy held up a hand to stop him. "It's highly unlikely that he broke in, it's not like he picked the lock with a waiting room full of patients watching, is it?"

"He entered without my permission," Danny continued, a little louder while glaring at Mindy. "Went through my personal things and posted a private letter to my ex-wife. He has no respect for boundaries."

"So you think we should fire him," Jeremy said.

"There's no 'think' about it. Anywhere else on the planet, the guy would be fired. People can't get away with shit like this."

Mindy scoffed. "You've always hated Morgan."

"I have not!"

"You didn't want to hire him in the first place!" Mindy said in a rising voice.

"Okay then, since you are clearly desperate to keep him, why don't you explain to me why he shouldn't be fired?"

Mindy opened her mouth... and nothing came out. Danny smiled smugly and folded his hands together in front of him.

"He _is_ a good nurse, Danny," Jeremy says. "Even with all his... idiosyncrasies."

"This is New York. There are plenty of good nurses."

Mindy shook her head. "No, there are plenty of drunks, thieves and Beverlys. Don't you remember how awful Beverly was as a nurse?"

A moment of silence passed in which each of the partners thought back to those dark days when there was a fifty-fifty chance they'd walk in in the morning to find someone had spilt the urine samples on the floor and not cleaned it up so the entire place reeked like a public toilet.

"I'm not saying we'd take Beverly back as a nurse," Danny said eventually. "We can interview again."

"No," Mindy whined, stretching the final 'o' sound. "I don't want to interview again. It was so bad last time. I probably have PTSD."

Danny closed his eyes. Something lifted in Mindy's chest the way it always did when she knew she was winning or saw a sale on shoes. It was a strange sense of weightlessness, as through everything inside her chest cavity had vanished and the space filled with air.

"God that was awful," Danny muttered, almost to himself. Mindy rubbed her nose in remembrance of the events of that day. She would swear her nose had never set quite right.

"If I can work with Beverly after she tried to kill me-"

"She didn't try to kill you," the men said in unison.

"Then surely Morgan deserves another chance too," Mindy finished, looking between the two men, trying to detect agreement in their faces. She soon gave up, thinking it was probably a good thing that she didn't play poker with either of them.

The office sat in silence for several moments.

"I think," Jeremy said. "That we can arrive at a solution that will satisfy everyone."

After several minutes, much arguing and compromising, Morgan was given three weeks' suspension and, as Jeremy had said, everyone was more or less satisfied. Danny, because the punishment was severe enough to fit the crime and Mindy and Jeremy because they recognised that Morgan was still an asset to the practice. Mindy felt sure that when Danny had calmed down a bit, he would see this too.

Leaving the office, Mindy looked around the reception area for Morgan to send him in to see Danny who would deliver the news. There was no sign of him. Behind her, Jeremy left as well and walked to the reception desk to pick up the files for his next patient. Betsy was sitting at her computer, fidgeting and darting looks around the room at nothing in particular. Jeremy said something to her under his breath that seemed to relax her a little. At least, she gave him a small smile.

"Betsy, where's Morgan? " Mindy said, coming up to stand beside Jeremy. Betsy looked around the open-plan area nervously once more and lowered her voice, despite the fact that there was only Beverly in sight and she was busy on he computer at the other side of the desk. Somehow she had not only mastered emails, using them primarily to send links to disgusting YouTube videos to everyone's work emails, but had managed to get around the office blocks on certain internet sites and had no qualms about browsing questionable websites in full view of the office.

"Beverly, please refrain from doing that at work," Jeremy called over to her, spotting her activities at the same time as Mindy. He then looked back at Betsy in time for her answer.

"He ran to the bathroom. I think he's..." There was a pause while Betsy searched for a way to put it.

"Throwing up?" Mindy volunteered.

"Becoming reacquainted with breakfast?" Jeremy put in.

Betsy looked ill at the thought of it and nodded once, sharply. "How's Dr. Castellano?" Clearly she was eager to be off the topic of the contents of Morgan's stomach.

Mindy looked back towards the door of Danny's office which Jeremy had forgotten to close. Danny was staring at his computer screen with stationary eyes and an unsmiling face.

Before Mindy could work out quite how to answer, the door to the bathroom opened and a green and moaning Morgan emerged, clutching his stomach and with a suspicious wet patch on the front of his top. Before Mindy could say a word, Danny called him into his office and Morgan walked in, swallowing back a heave. Mindy wrinkled her nose as the smell of vomit reached her. After all these years as a doctor, it was still the one smell she hated most. Betsy looked at her computer screen.

"Oh, your next patients are in exam rooms one and three. You should probably go."

Mindy thanked her and grabbed the file for her patient, heading towards the exam room as she flipped it open.

By the time Mindy was finished with Mrs. Dorchester (first pregnancy, no complications arising) Morgan had already left. To be honest, she wasn't sure if she should be relieved or not by that. She was a little annoyed he hadn't said goodbye but on the other hand, what would she have said to him if he had? What could she have said?

Midway through the afternoon, in a lull between appointments which she was using to get some of the paperwork which had piled up while she was in New Mexico done, her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID.

Casey.

Dammit. No, wait. She didn't mean that. This was her hot pastor boyfriend who was all kinds of sweet and quoted the Bible in a sexy voice that made her feel dirty in a _really good _way. Just because she hadn't thought about him all day... Well there'd been a lot going on. It didn't mean anything.

She answered. "Hi!" She winced. That came out really high-pitched and weird. She lowered her voice and tried again. "How are you?" Great. Apparently she could either sound like a six-year-old girl or a middle-aged man.

"Mindy? Are you okay? You sound like you're coming down with a cold or something."

She cleared her throat. "No, I'm okay. Don't worry."

"Alright, babe. So how was Santa Fe?"

"The conference was good. Except Jeremy and Morgan made total asses of themselves. It was kind of funny to see actually."

Casey laughed. "Glad you had fun. And... Did you see your ex-boyfriend?"

Mindy made a disgusted sound at the back of her throat. "Ugh, yes. He's such a dick. Hey, you're on pretty good terms with God, right? Do you think you can persuade him to do a little smiting? For me?"

"I kind of tend to like thinking of God as a kind and merciful being not so much the wrathful vengeance thing."

"Not even one little lightning bolt?" In her head, God looked a little like Zeus from that Disney film, sitting on his cloud with a quiver full of bolts while winged horses flew around him. It was kind of cool. Casey's voice stops her from imagining the colour of horse she would choose if she could have a winged horse.

"Sorry." There was a short pause. "So it didn't go well?"

"Not so much. Turns out he was a bigger douche than I thought." Mindy's grip tightened around the phone, mind shooting back to Heather, and Anne and whoever else the bastard was banging when he was supposed to be busy falling head over heels in love with her and planning their perfect life together.

Casey made a sympathetic noise. "I really thought seeing him would help."

"I know. And I'm sorry I didn't call you sooner. There's been more drama around here than an episode of Grey's."

"I wish I knew what 'Grey's' was but it sounds stressful. Listen, I've got a Bible study class starting in a few minutes but how about you come over tonight and tell me all about it?"

Mindy smiled and agreed before putting the phone down. She felt better already.

It lasted about three minutes.

Leaving her office to go to exam room three where her next patient would be waiting, she happened to glance over at Danny's door. And stopped.

At his door, he was standing talking to a blonde woman. As she turned, Mindy recognised her in a stomach-dropping moment. Christina.

Danny's face was tight, angry as he stared at her. She reached out and brushed his arm. Immediately he tried to pull away but she clung on. He snapped something at her but she remained calm, looking up at him with those big round eyes. Mindy's papers crumpled in her fist.

Danny shook his head and then sighed. Waving Christina into his office, he closed the door behind them both. Mindy stared at the closed door with an open mouth. What was _she_ doing back here?


End file.
